Unfortunately, this particular client was fairly new, so as a result, their Moz campaign data wasn’t around during the high organic traffic times in 2015. However, if it was, a good place to start would be looking at the search visibility metric (as long as the primary keywords have stayed the same). If this metric has changed drastically over the years, it’s a good indicator that your organic rankings have slipped quite a bit.
Hey Ryan, glad I could help :) I am going to find them later and steal all of them, lol. You had an idea straight away, but some bloggers get stuck and say "I don't have anything to give away". Yes, you do, everyone has something. You can always turn your best posts in different kinds of media, like PDFs, videos, audios, slideshows and just share them everywhere. Thanks so much for the comment!
If you want to know how engaging your content is, you might look at bounce rates, average time on page and the number of pages visited per session to get an idea – and Google can do precisely the same. If a user clicks through to your site, quickly returns to the results page and clicks on another listing (called “pogo-sticking”), it suggests you haven’t provided what this person is looking for.
I would also advise to continue doing what works. If something you have rolled out generates great traffic and links bring out a new version of the content, for example the 2012 version worked effectively bring out the 2013 version of the content. Another effective strategy is to make the piece of content into an evergreen article which you add to over time so it is always up to date.

Wonderful little article, lovely detailing and the possible sources of direct traffic which could lead to various positives and negatives to your overall SEO strategies. Direct traffic could be the prime conversion getter for your eCommerce website or could be a flaw in your website as a whole which looks like direct traffic has a correlation with organic traffic as well. As organic traffic increases, your overall direct traffic increases along with it. Does some type of bot activities lead to direct traffic as well?s

Brankica, Excellent list. The only one I could think of is mentioning through email to family and friends. Example: Hey Guys and Gals, Sorry I haven't been in touch for a while. I've been working my tail off building something I hope will be special. I would appreciate it if you could do me a huge favor. My blog is still new and I need some opinions on where it can improve. Let me know the good, bad and ugly:) Also, can you pass it along to some of your friends? The more opinions the better idea I have at what works and what doesn't. etc. Thanks for the post. Live it LOUD!
Brankica, what a valuable post you've contributed here! These are all great methods for driving traffic to your website. Here's two more suggestions: 1. Write Amazon reviews on products/books related to your website and sign those comments with your name, the name of your blog, and its URL. You can even do video reviews now and mention your blog as part of your qualifications to review a particular book or product. 2. QR codes on flyers. People can scan these with their phone and be sent directly to your blog. I'm seeing these all over the city lately linking to things like bus schedules, Foursquare pages, and what not. Once again, thanks for this post!

If you feel as if your business is being overtaken by your competitors, it may be because they are already taking advantage of everything that social traffic can do for them. Having a Facebook page or Twitter account with a huge amount of likes or followers automatically makes you look more legitimate. For example, would you rather buy something from someone whose page has 50 likes, or someone whose page is really popular and has 2,000 likes? The answer is obvious.

In the end of the day it depends on the size of the website you are working with and how well known the brand is in the market. You can adapt some of the strategies listed above in the post on scale and it can have a highly positive impact on a web property, the property in question is a real content house so any thing is possible. What else do you suggest we should do I will advise you if it has been done already?
I have that problem :) I read all day long sometimes, just to realize at 1 AM that I am supposed to post at 7 AM ( I try to keep the posting schedule) and I have nothing written! Do your blog posts first, if you can write a few in advance that is great, cause that way you can schedule them and feel more relaxed, not being under pressure. Then check out one of these recommended sites. With for example Yahoo answers, you can spend 10-15 minutes every day and answer 3 questions in that time. Out of those 3 one can have a link. Not too much effort but can bring nice results!
Great awesome article till now its the best one I ever read for traffic generation on web and on this contest as well can be converted into an ebook too with few addons like there is a site for video starting with m cant recall the name feeling damn sleepy reading all this articles since hours,and sites like redgage and arranging giveaways depending on your site niche
The first step to digging into organic traffic is to analyze what content on your website is performing best in this area. For obvious reasons, the homepage is almost certainly the landing page for most organic traffic, but the other top pages are often revealing. To view this data, we’re going to head over to the Behaviour section in the Analytics sidebar, then choose Site Content and finally Landing Pages.
Use social media. Build a presence on social media networks like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ etc. All of these activities help to get your name out and website address out on the internet. Read about how we doubled our social media audience in a week. Add share buttons to your site to make it easy for people to share your content. And write content worthy of sharing.
Organic traffic is a special kind of referral traffic, defined as visitors that arrive from search engines. This is what most marketers strive to increase. The higher you rank for certain keywords, the more often your search result appears (increasing your impressions), ultimately resulting in more visitors (aka clicks). It’s also important to note that paid search ads are not counted in this category.
For a small business, it is better to start with Organic SEO because aside from it is a low-cost investment, it will build your internet presence gradually and eventually have a solid foundation in your own niche – provided that you are doing the right way. It is not bad to invest in non-organic. You just have to make sure that you are investing on the right campaigns and not on the overly artificial ways to gain traffic and rank. Avoid investing too much on paid advertising and instead invest on creating relevant and useful content.
For a small business, it is better to start with Organic SEO because aside from it is a low-cost investment, it will build your internet presence gradually and eventually have a solid foundation in your own niche – provided that you are doing the right way. It is not bad to invest in non-organic. You just have to make sure that you are investing on the right campaigns and not on the overly artificial ways to gain traffic and rank. Avoid investing too much on paid advertising and instead invest on creating relevant and useful content.
This is a great piece of work for references, lots of info on this, Answer sites have become less and less popular, but the you can really build your name on these sites such as forums, if you are consistent in answering questions frequently. Out of the points you have mentioned, I relay enjoy the "Guest Blogging" point, as this is a win win situation, not just putting out content on other websites, but also welcoming guest on my own site, giving readers a change and a different style of article, as everyone is unique in their own way. I'm actually posting an interview tomorrow with a well known name in the guest blogging. Whichever point one choices from above, consistency is the key, there is no point doing it once, but it should be done on frequently, and over time with patience you will start to see the rewards.
This is my first time on your blog and I found it when I was reading up on who won the contest at Famous Bloggers. I can definitely see why now! I spent a good amount of time reading and going through all the advice that you've stated in this post since I am fairly new to blogging. I believe one of the biggest hurdles that I will come across when trying to further my blogging experience is driving traffic to my blog. I will make sure to apply many of the techniques you've listed in this post to my blog and hopefully I'll see some traffic! I will definitely continue to read your informative posts. Thanks! :)

Absolutely nothing (other than the scale of the challenge). Google doesn’t care whether you’re a startup, a major financial institution or the smallest online retailer – all it cares about is connecting people with the most relevant content for each search query. The SEO requirements for a startup are exactly the same as the world’s biggest brands and search engines want to see the same things from you as any other kind of business.

Another big benefit to using social media is that it can help you gain more influence, as well as grow your business across board. And although social media has little direct influence over your search engine ranking, it can help your SEO, albeit indirectly. By helping to grow your business and your website, gaining more traffic, more backlinks and so on, this will improve your website's domain authority, and thus, its search engine ranking by extension.
Woah Brankica. I came over to support you because you are a good friend and you deserve it, but now that I am here, I am supporting you because this post is friggin insane!!! Fark, so glad I am NOT in this contest now, how could I compete with this?!?! Honestly Brankica, this post deserves to win because its genuinely one of the most thorough and easy to digest posts on traffic generation that I have EVER read. Respect
Would you mind sharing your stumbleupon user name with me? I would love to follow you and your shares! :) I am beginning to get more active on SU and it is definitely paying off. I have had a few posts in the last several weeks that have brought in 600-700 visits each. :) In regards to your "challenge" I am going to try out paper.li I will let you know how it goes.
Armed with this information, ecommerce marketers can learn why some sources might be underperforming or focus efforts on sources that drive better quality traffic. In some cases, this might mean relying less on search engines and more on social media or brand awareness. Other times the opposite could be the best course of action. Either way, the Traffic Sources section in Google Analytics can help.
Brankica Great post. Looks like I've got a few weeks worth of exploring to do - checking out these blog traffic boosting tools and ideas! One question I have: How do you measure the success of each of these tools and tips? Surely you have tried some that were less successful than others. Do you track metrics and weed out the less-than-stellar time-suck ideas? I'd love to hear how you settled on these that you mention in the post. Perhaps there's value in talking a bit about the ones that have fallen by the wayside and why as well.
In the end of the day it depends on the size of the website you are working with and how well known the brand is in the market. You can adapt some of the strategies listed above in the post on scale and it can have a highly positive impact on a web property, the property in question is a real content house so any thing is possible. What else do you suggest we should do I will advise you if it has been done already?

While it’s best to create a custom dimension for filtering out bots, applying the generic bot filter is a good place to start. It’s important to note that filters cannot be applied retroactively, so if you’ve recently turned on this feature, you should be receiving less traffic. Additionally, double-check that you are filtering out your own traffic and IP address.

Facebook ads are a great way to get highly targeted traffic to your blog (landing page, fan page, what ever). Although not a free traffic source, it is a great one. The price is not very high and I think it is pretty acceptable considering that you can choose demographics of Facebook users that will see your ad. I had great success getting traffic that converts on one of my niche sites.
Brankica, Excellent list. The only one I could think of is mentioning through email to family and friends. Example: Hey Guys and Gals, Sorry I haven't been in touch for a while. I've been working my tail off building something I hope will be special. I would appreciate it if you could do me a huge favor. My blog is still new and I need some opinions on where it can improve. Let me know the good, bad and ugly:) Also, can you pass it along to some of your friends? The more opinions the better idea I have at what works and what doesn't. etc. Thanks for the post. Live it LOUD!
As I said at the beginning of the article, more naturally earned backlinks, will help you get more organic traffic and improve SEO. You can suggest your readers to link back to your website by having a small widget at the bottom of your posts. Just as you have the social media sharing links, an embedded linking widget will increase the chances to get more backlinks.

Use social media. Build a presence on social media networks like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ etc. All of these activities help to get your name out and website address out on the internet. Read about how we doubled our social media audience in a week. Add share buttons to your site to make it easy for people to share your content. And write content worthy of sharing.